News and tidbits for Monday

With Olin Kreutz still out with a sore Achilles’ tendon, second-year pro Josh Beekman, a personal favorite of mine because of his mean streak, has been gaining reps with the first team offense. It’s never good for your All-Pro center, and the true leader of your offense, to ever be sitting out, but from an optimistic standpoint, the bright side of it is that Beekman can gain some valuable practice time.

Israel Idonije moved this off-season from defensive end to tackle, where the coaches feel his speed and versatility will add good depth to a position of need. He’ll join Tommie Harris, Anthony Adams, Dusty Dvoracek, Matt Toeaina, and rookie Marcus Harrison and, hopefully, a position of weakness last year will have a little more pop this season. Idonije gained 40 pounds in the off-season, maintained his low body fat percentage, and, ironically, still is wearing the same pants size.

Over the weekend, Rex Grossman and Kyle Orton traded both good plays and bad plays, including interceptions. According to ChicagoSports.com, a cynical fan heckled Grossman. Ah, even with a fresh new season, the same old idiots come out in full force. Let it go, buddy; what you see is what you get with Bears quarterbacks. When are Bears fans going to realize that the majority of teams in the league are dissatisfied with their quarterbacks and would like to improve in that aspect? In fact, let’s just say you wouldn’t need to take off your shoes and socks to count how many teams have a stable quarterback situation… you can just use your two hands.

Danieal Manning has been playing the nickelback role, his third destination since entering the league in 2006, and he hopes it’ll be his last move. Manning has bounced around from cornerback to safety the past two seasons, but his move to nickelback signals two things: 1) the organization’s resignation that he is too athletic to play safety but not good enough to settle in at cornerback, and 2) the inevitable departure of Ricky Manning, Jr.

There’s a blurb from Brad Biggs of the Sun-Times in which he says Kevin Jones was told by the organization they’d like him to lose 10 pounds to help keep unnecessary weight off his surgically repaired knee. I think that’s a good idea. The guy is already more ripped than Thomas Jones was so he can afford to drop a few lbs.

As I’m writing, I’m listening to AM 670 The Score and Zach Zaidman is saying it’s a good thing the season doesn’t start for over a month because this offense is a long ways away from being average.

Ouch. That doesn’t inspire confidence for the 2008 campaign. At this point, there seems to be added pressure on the defense and special teams to carry this team through the bad times that surely lie ahead for this young Bears offense.